Madhav Kobal (You cannot afford to ignore Linux)

Consider this scenario. I am connected to the internet using a cable modem. And my ISP dynamically allocates the IP address to my machine. But they also store the MAC address of my ethernet card and associate it with the IP address they provide. Suppose I change my NIC(or my machine), I will not be able to log on to the net because my ethernet card has a different MAC address than the one stored in thedatabase of the ISP. The immediate short fall of this is that, I have to contact my ISP through telephone and request them to reset the MAC address table (or what ever) in their database to point to my new MAC address. So if I knew my old MAC address, I could easily fool the ISP to think that I am using the original machine by setting the MAC address of my new machine to the old value. And I could save myself a telephone call. # ifconfig eth0 down # ifconfig eth0 hw ether 00:80:48:BA:d1:20 # ifconfig eth0 up # ifconfig eth0 |grep HWaddr

Blank Canvas Gmail Signatures Automatically inserts HTML signatures into your Gmail messages based on which address you are sending from. Supports up to four signatures for each address you have set up. Works for Compose Message and Reply/Forward. This extension for Firefox automatically inserts HTML signatures into your Gmail messages based on which address you are sending from. Works for Compose Message and Reply/Forward. Features: Works for Compose Mail, Reply, and Forward Support for single or multiple email addresses Create a different signature for each email address you use in your Gmail account Supports up to four signatures per address Real-time signature preview while editing signature HTML Signature automatically inserted into message above (or optionally below) quoted text Support for special characters Easy setup and configuration interface

This comes in very handy if your trying to track back when you had last run something. To enable it just simply add export HISTTIMEFORMAT="%h/%d - %H:%M:%S " to your .bashrc file echo 'export HISTTIMEFORMAT="%h/%d - %H:%M:%S "' >> ~/.bashrc Then reload your .bashrc source ~/.bashrc Now when you run history you should get a output similar to the one below 502 Aug/12 - 13:48:31 tail -f /home/duffy/log/access.log 503 Aug/12 - 13:49:01 echo hello 504 Aug/12 - 13:49:24 more /var/log/syslog Some other bash history tips The best way of finding something quickly in your bash history is simply by pressing ctrl+r and then typing out the start of the command it will auto complete it with any matches found in your bash history If you don't want to save duplicate commands in your bash history simply add export HISTCONTROL=ignoreboth to your .bashrc echo 'export HISTCONTROL=ignoreboth' >> ~/.bashrc If you want to change the leng

A few months ago, I posted here a tutorial on downloading or saving Flash/YouTube Videos on Linux the easy way. If the previous instruction is really difficult for you to grasp, then you should read this latest entry very carefully :-) Because now I'm going to show you how in the simplest way possible you can download a YouTube video plus convert it at the same time. --So easy that the only requirement is a web browser (no need for add-ons) and probably .01% of your brain. So let's get down to business: Step 1: Visit YouTube and select a video to watch. Step 2: In the URL address box, type pwn before " youtube ", and press enter: Step 3: You will then be redirected to deturl.com where you will be presented with two download links. One is an FLV file and the other one is an MP4 file for the happy iPod/iPhone owners. Step 4: Click on the link of your choice and save the file. Step 5: There's no more step five. Enjoy! :-)

If I would pick the best free and open-source internet television desktop client , it has to be Miro . This awesome application (previously called Democracy Player and DTV) is loaded with great features making the TV experience on your computer a lot more fun and exciting. Miro can play or supports most known video files like Quicktime, WMV, MPEG, AVI, and XVID. But it's more than that, as it also has an integrated RSS aggregator and a BitTorrent client among others. Miro can automatically download videos (like perhaps your favorite podcasts) from thousands of available RSS-based channels. --A lot of them offer free HD videos. You can easily manage your downloads, or instantly play the downloaded videos on Miro's built-in video player. Managing downloads The integrated BitTorrent client is based on libtorrent. By default, LegalTorrents.com is bookmarked in Miro and can be seen at the sidebar. Miro by the way supports the adding of website bookmarks under the “Sites” category. W

Hailed as the Google Earth killer, Bhuvan is an indigenous mapping system developed by ISRO to focus only on the Indian sub-continent. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is all set to unveil today its new mapping service Bhuvan -- considered to be a tough competitor to Google Earth and Wikimapia. Bhuvan, which means 'earth' in Sanskrit, will allow users to have a closer look at any part of the subcontinent barring sensitive locations such as military and nuclear installations. Dr G Madhavan Nair, chairman, ISRO will launch the Bhuvan webportal at a function today in the presence of Prithviraj Chavan, minister of state in the Prime Minister's Office. Developed by ISRO, Bhuvan allows users to zoom far closer than the aerial view from a chopper. Bhuvan will be able to deliver high resolution imagery data of the order of five metres. On the other hand, Google Earth shows details up to 200 metres distance and Wikimapia up to 50 metres. Bhuvan will focus only on the I

XBMC, recursive acronym for “ XBMC Media Center “, is an award winning free and open source software media-player and entertainment hub for all your digital media. Multi-platform, Internationalized, and Localized XBMC is a cross-platform software available for Linux, Mac OS X (Leopard, Tiger, and Apple TV), Microsoft Windows operating-system, as well as the original Xbox game-console. With translations to over 30 languages for a worldwide audience. All versions of course completely free of any adware or spyware. XBMC for Linux XBMC for Mac XBMC for Windows XBMC for Xbox XBMC Live XBMC supports most common audio, video, and image formats, playlists, audio visualizations, slideshows, weather reporting, and third-party plugins. It is network-capable (internet and LAN ). Unlike other applications like Windwos Media Center, or other free-software media center applications like MediaPortal and MythTV , XBMC Media Center has as of yet no PVR TV-recording and EPG TV-Guide functionality o

You can create VirtualBox virtual machines from command line in 3 easy steps. We will assume Ubuntu 9.10 in the following example. Create new virtual machine: $ VBoxManage createvm --name "Ubuntu 9.10" --register Create virtual hard disk (5 GB): $ VBoxManage createhd --filename "Ubuntu.vdi" --size 5000 --remember Modify virtual machine: $ VBoxManage modifyvm "Ubuntu 9.10" --memory "512MB" --hda "Ubuntu.vdi" --dvd /home/toor/karmic-desktop-i386.iso --acpi on --boot1 dvd --nic1 nat –memory - memory size –hda - specify virtual hard disk –dvd - specify ISO image file –acpi on - enable ACPI support –boot1 - specify boot order –nic1 - network setting Now you can start virtual machine by typing this command: $ VBoxManage startvm "Ubuntu 9.10"